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“The coaching staff, you can tell, they want to win and are competitive people,” he said. “They want to win, but not necessarily by yelling at players.”

DeBacker (6-3, 185) plays center field and bats leadoff for Lee’s Summit North. He earned All-Big Six second-team honors and played on the Missouri Junior Sun Belt team. He said he also considered Bradley and Army.

He is in the International Baccalaureate program at Lee’s Summit North and is considering majoring in international business or engineering at WSU.

“I loved the university,” DeBacker said. “The new coaching staff is awesome. I love the way they are going to be running things. They're focused on your development and with your development comes winning.”